A Little Bit About Transition....

Last time I blogged, I was on the verge of leaving the familiar comforts of my long-outgrown contractual day job and preparing to step into the Great Unknown.

My last day with the company for whom I'd been contracting for over 3 years was Friday, April 29th, and I had hoped to slip out of there with little fanfare. As an introvert (and in spite of the MFA in theater I have), I'm not always comfortable with being in the spotlight or having much attention paid me (my focus was writing, after all), especially in moments that have the potential for great gobs of emotion; despite how I felt about the job (bored, static, frustrated, unsupported), this was one of those moments.

A few days before my departure, I was presented with a generous gift card to a favorite natural grocery store, fresh oatmeal cookies from the store's bakery, and a thoughtful "Farewell & Good Luck!" card signed by everyone I'd worked with the past 3+ years. Naturally, I felt a well of emotion (though I didn't spill any tears!), and a surge of gratitude.

One of my goals in making this capital-T Transition was to leave my day job with integrity--which meant NOT burning any bridges, and leaving my connections there intact, no matter how I groused and felt about the place. My feelings about my work are MY business; my relationships with my co-workers, however, involved another person, and that is what I reminded myself needed to be honored and held lightly and carefully. I was leaving FOR ME, not "because of them." It's a difference of mindset that makes all the difference.

So now, I am more than 1.5 months out of the structure of a day job; I create my own structure on a daily basis, which can be unnerving; I am also living on a very careful budget, which takes planning and mindfulness, but it's been a good (albeit challenging) exercise. The bottom line is, my needs are being met. I have shelter. I have food. I can pay my bills. I see my friends. I enjoy nature. My health is great. I am okay.

I have also been blessed with time to research my own Next Best Move (coaches get to use their own tools!); I've done two informational interviews with Human Resources professionals, since there is much about that field that compliments the profession of Life Coaching; I've attended an HR Open House at a local college that grants professional certifications and rekindled some connections; I've researched funding options for the training; I've attended career search workshops. And I've had the time to maintain my own health & well-being with more Al-Anon meetings and hilly 3-mile morning walks (kicking in those surges of positive endorphins!).

Why am I writing all this? To remind you, my dear reader, that Life Coaches are, first and foremost, people who also experience many of the same circumstances and issues in our own lives that our clients bring to us for exploration and processing. Many of my clients come to me because they are facing or starting transitions of their own--something is about to end or has already ended, the "New Thing" (whatever that may be) has not yet begun--and they're smack in the middle of it, smack in the middle of The Great Unknown without a compass, disoriented, without focus, without an identifying label, and maybe a bit (or a lot) fearful. It can be terrifying.....and it can also be profoundly liberating.

What have you always wanted to try/explore/develop/create that you told yourself that--because of the hours/focus/attention your day job took, you didn't have time for? What do you truly value that you'd like to honor in your life (i.e., starting a small vegetable garden, volunteering at an animal shelter, cooking from scratch, writing the Great American Novel)? Now is the time to leap; now is the time to explore; now is the time to expand your horizons and become the person you've back-burnered for so many other reasons.

Transitions provide a lot of things: fear, upheaval, uncertainty. Transitions are akin to someone (The Universe, or ourselves) taking our plates with both hands and flicking them sharply skyward saying, "WHEEEEE!!!!", so that that the contents scatter and disperse. We have no idea, after that happens, what our "new" plates will hold, or what will land on them.

There is no new meal, not yet. Our plates are empty. This is what transition means.

But on the flip side, they provide new opportunities, boundary-less thinking (i.e., time to "think outside the box"), enormous possibilities, and the precious TIME-perhaps the biggest gift of all-to explore what's out in the world for us to see/do/become/experience.

Transitions occur for everyone, numerous times-whether they happen TO us or we create them ourselves (as I did when I left my day job). Yes, our plates have been cleared; it is just us and the expanse of far horizon. And truly limitless possibilities.

As the poet Mary Oliver writes, "Tell me, what is it you plan to do/with your one wild and precious life?"

Well?

Light My Fire

Typically, the first thing I do when I get through the front door at the end of another work day (after greeting my two cats) is drop my stuff on the floor and change into shorts and a tee-shirt or sweatpants (if the weather is chillier). Usually, I’m pretty beat—and being a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), somewhat over-stimulated by being both around and engaged with people & information all day. All I want to do is (quietly) eat dinner, catch up on the Sunday NY Times, look at shoes on eBay (I find it relaxing—really!) or watch whatever Netflix is waiting for me.

My day job takes it out of me, but I can remind myself it really is only a job—in other words, it’s something I’m doing (for now) from 9-5 to float my life, pay my bills, keep a roof over my head and the kitties in kibble & treats. And it’s something I’ll continue to do until the thing I most love doing—the thing that fires me up, feeds my soul, stokes my curiosity and energizes me—the thing I was meant to do with my life, my “right livelihood”—moves from the realm of part-time work to full-time work.

I’m a Life Coach. I’ve been, in some way, shape or form, a Life Coach pretty much all my life. I was the friend everyone came to for advice who apparently had “TELL ME” emblazoned across my forehead, the one who listened with great patience, empathy and compassion and offered a shoulder to cry on and wisdom probably beyond my years, the one who heard about boyfriends, careers, cross-country moves, families of origin, college, weight loss (and gain), dying pets, physical ailments, and just about anything else life drummed up (and it was a LOT, and varied). The one who preferred long conversations and hearing other people’s stories to just about any other time-filler (except live theater, which is ALSO the unfolding of “other people’s stories” and the reason I got an MFA in playwriting).

Why am I sharing all this? Because when we are practicing our “right livelihood”—when we do what we are meant to do, which also means honoring our Higher Power by tapping into and sharing our true, innate, God-Given gifts/talents with the world around us, as I do when I am coaching—we are, in those moments, truly alive.

As I mentioned, at the end of the day when I return home from my day job, I’m pretty beat. I’ve been up (vertical, yes, though not necessarily awake) since about 6:30 AM and including my commute time, have invested about 12 hours into it, all told. My brain may feel fuzzy, my body fatigued—yet, when I prepare to coach someone for an hour at the end of a long day, either via phone or face-to-face, the day job and the exhaustion magically dissipates and the day and its stressors slip completely away…..and when the coaching hour is up, I am, for all practical purposes and for lack of a better word, high. Just totally, utterly, naturally high. When I am done with a client, I feel happy, re-energized, sure of my path and identity as a Life Coach, empowered, and thrilled that I found my heart’s calling, my alignment, my absolute bliss. Thrilled that I can be paid for doing something I love, and that I get to participate, in a very real sense, in “other people’s stories.”

And when we do what we love, when we’re truly aligned with our work, when we are doing what, on a cellular level, we know we are meant to be doing, when our work fits us like a glove—when it’s a “no-brainer” to be turning our passions or hobbies into our livelihoods (what a concept!), when it feeds us like the amazing feast it can be, we are energized beyond belief—and in turn, we send that positive energy right back out into a hungry and broken world, into the universe at large where it is so desperately needed. By our very satisfied, focused, contented natures, we become “change-makers,” an army of positive thinkers.

So we owe it to ourselves and to the world to find work that charges us up, lights our inner fire, stokes our passion, feeds our deepest values. The exploration it sometimes takes to find out what that may be for each of us, what our true callings may be, is worth the time, energy, journey, and possibly money we spend on our becoming.

As Confucius said, “Find a job you love, and never work a day in your life.”

In what ways does your work feed you?